Thursday, June 16, 2011

These are my reflections on what I think laws should be, not what they may actually be.

Everyone knows my position on abortion: It's entirely up to the pregnant, affected woman whether or not to continue a pregnancy which solely impacts her biologically, physically, and hormonally. A man should have no say in whether or not a woman he has impregnated carries to term.

This position must be coupled with the following, or it is fundamentally unfair to men. While a man has no say in whether or not a woman he has impregnated carries to term, he should absolutely have a say in whether or not he wants to be a father. I think men should have the opportunity to walk away from pregnancy. A man who is childfree-by-choice should no more be "trapped" by an unwanted pregnancy than a woman who is.

So I don't think men should have an automatic obligation to pay child support, for example. If a man has not signed up for the responsibilities of fatherhood, he should not be assigned them, especially when the ultimate choice of whether or not to bring an unintended pregnancy to fruitition is not his to make.

Of course, along with this abdication of men's automatic responsibilities to children of their DNA, I also do not think impregnating someone else gives a man any automatic rights as a parent, either.

My alcoholic ex-husband, the biological father of my son, is not a good man, and he has never been a father. He did not provide care for me during pregnancy physically, emotionally, or financially. He did not modify his destructive behaviors to be a safe person for an infant to be around. He stole my son's change jar and cashed it in for drug money.

But if I were to die tomorrow, the law would give my son to this man, simply because they share DNA. I left this man when my son was a 6 week old infant. He has never heard my son speak, or seen him dance, or rushed him to the emergency room. He is not, in all ways that count, my son's father.

My boyfriend Viking is. He's held my son during immunizations, attended every school meeting, and tucked him into bed at night. He's given up recreational spending to start a college fund for our son, even as we struggle with our current expenses. He's studied autism along with me, so we can undersatnd our boy even better.

But he has no legal rights to the child he is helping me raise, because their DNA is different. We're looking into the process so he can legally adopt. (Finances dictate this is only in the theoretical stages for now.)

Even though I won full custody of my son three and a half years ago, my stated wishes in my Will are probably not enough to guarantee that in the case of my death, my son stays with his father, and isn't shipped off to live with a man who raped and abused, and yes, also impregnated me.*

I'd like to see a shift in our laws. Parenting well is a choice, made of daily actions and commitments and budgets. While there is no comparing a woman's body with a man's wallet, being able to enter parenting willingly rather than by obligation, coercion, and legal enforcement, is important for any parent.

Just as we must protect a woman's right to walk away from pregnancy via abortion, or to choose to let another parent a child she has born via adoption, we must protect a man's right to walk away. A man should never have a say in whether or not a woman terminates; that effects her body and her life. It is her choice to make. However, a man should have a say in whether or not he participates in the life of a born child.

So if he does want to raise his child, and the woman does want to birth it, a man should have legal recourse to petition for full cutsody, shared custody, regular visitation, etc.

Prior to birth, women have put in work bringing a child into the world. Women who haven't done this job "well" (say by using highly addictive narcotics during gestation) have their custody threatened. So should men who do not put any "work" into preparing for children they hope to raise. If a man does not physically, emotionally, or financially support or assist a pregnant woman, at the very least he is belittling her efforts. And it doesn't show a readiness for fatherhood, or a commitment to the health and well-being of his future child.

I wish all new biological parents, at hospitals or when applying for birth certificates for home births, had an opportunity to declare, once and for all "Yes, I commit to this child for a minimum of the next 18 years of his/her life and all the responsibilites and rights that go with that." or "No, I do not commit to raising this child. I do not wish to financially or otherwise support this child, and I abdicate any decision-making or custody rights I may have."

What if all parents wanted their kids? Imagine what a world and a society we could have. Imagine what happy children.

* The rape occurred after conception, during my pregnancy, when we were married. Read more!

Saturday, June 11, 2011

I was homeschooled, then attended Christian school, then went to 2 public elementary schools, 3 public middle schools, 3 public high schools (including 1 magnet school) and finally, GED school. We moved a lot. I had the un-enviable experience of being the New Kid many, many times growing up. In some schools I was bullied, but at others I wasn't.

School culture plays a huge role in the degree of bullying that goes on. Surely some teacher or gym coach at that Iowa elementary school must have noticed the 20 kids ringed round me in a daily post-lunch circle, taunting me and calling me names (and not even clever ones. They just said "Big nose!" over and over.) But no teacher ever once intervened. Bullying was accepted, permissable, allowed. And so age 11 was one of the worst years of my life, and when the eating disorder I'd struggle with for over a decade began.

By contrast, my first high school, which was a magnet school for the visual and performing arts, had almost no bullying. We had a fairly diverse student population, but acceptance of diversity was also very high. During my first year there, student-led petitions had added a vegetarian alternative to the lunch menu and juice vending machines in the hallways. We started a chapter of the Gay-Straight Alliance and Amnesty International. Being gay or bisexual was practically trendy it was so accepted. (To my knowledge, the school is still nicknamed "bi high" to locals.) That was the only school where I felt comfortable holding a girlfriend's hand.

The new website StopBullying.gov has advice and resources for everyone involved in bullying: the bullied, the bully, the principal, parents, and even bystanders who observe bullying without reporting it.

My academic success began a long, slow decline with those 5th grade bullies. I started skipping school, faking illnesses to stay home, and even inducing vomitting - anything to get out of class, away from my tormentors. Being bullied is NOT a right of passage. Being victimized is NOT something you have to accept, for my child or yours.

If you're a student or parent, I encourage you to get involved with your local school. Find out what measures are being taken to prevent bullying. Encourage your school to adopt some if they haven't already, and make it clear to the school you want to do your part to help reduce bullying for all students.

A culture of acceptance, tolerance, and openness to new ideas made my first high school a fun, exciting place to get involved in activism and learn (like college!) A culture of silence, of kids not reporting other bullies, and teachers pretending they didn't see what they must have, made me suicidal at age 11. The difference is obvious, the choice is clear. Prevent bullying in your community, school, or workplace. We all deserve a better world.
Read more!

I don't know with certainty whether my exhusband intentionally sabotaged my birth control or not. I DO know that his attitude on finding out I was pregnant was smug, a warden's grin. He'd gleefully remind me, while thumping his finger on my rotund tummy, "Gotcha bitch!" And he was right to an extent. The ONLY reason I married him was because I got pregnant. The ONLY reason I took him back after leaving him was because the pregnancy test came up positive. And abusive men know this tactic often works.

In a recent survey of calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1 in 4 callers reported that her male partner was sabotaging her birth control, or otherwise trying to force or coerce her into pregnancy. Why on earth would a pregnant woman be more likely to stay with an abusive man than a non-pregnant woman? Well, for a lot of us, earning potential pretty much disappears by the second or third trimester. Women with high blood pressure, low fetal weight, or an incomplete cervix (which may open early, causing still-birth or miscarriage) are often prescribed weeks or even months of bed rest, leaving them completely dependent on another for care.

Then there's the fact that most birth mothers have a strong, natural, biochemical desire to be with their children. Women who are mothers have decreased earning potential for their entire lives, compared with women who are childless (and compared with men, who do not face decreased earning potential no matter how many kids they father.)

When I see these "Personhood" bills introduced in states across the US, attempting to give a fetus more right to a woman's body than she has, I can't help but think of birth control sabotage. If a man gets me pregnant, by lying to me, deceiving me, tricking me, or tampering with my birth control, these states are saying that he had more right to impregnate me than I have right to stop it. When states try to make abortion impossible to access, they are hurting women in abusive situations, forcing them to birth children into poverty and/or abuse, and causing them to have greater dependency on men who are essentially rapists.
Read more!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

"Cyber bullying." It just doesn't sound real - does it? It sounds like "virtual bullying" or "bullying lite" or something. It certainly doesn't sound like something that should be so upsetting.

I've been getting a deluge of attacks from anti-choice misogynist, racist, Christians lately, and it kind of baffles me. I haven't made a new YouTube video in over a month. I've barely been blogging. I had my abortion more than a year ago. Why now?

I don't really get it. From a YouTube account impersonating me (badly) to a black supramacist calling me "the white devil" to an atheist unfollowing me on Twitter after she learned I had Jewish ancestry, to more anti-choice laws being passed in Florida, the state where I had my abortion than I could've imagined then, I'm feeling pretty down.

Kid's home from school for the summer (next month he'll start a two-mornings-a-week program, but that's hardly full time schooling.) Viking had to switch colleges while looking for work (after his parents decided they weren't going to cosign his student loan like they'd promised, because he's living-in-sin with me.) Needless to say, we're in a financial hole, and even though he's working now, it's not brining in enough to make up the backlog.

I don't really know what I'm going to do. I'm trying to learn Java and C++ so I can find work I'll actually be trained to do, with my disability.

You ever just lose all hope? I do all the time. The only "secret" I know is to just go do the dishes, make the next meal, draw the next bath, and act like you'll figure it out somehow. But it's harder and harder to have "faith" I'll manage to survive my circumstances yet again.
Read more!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Hello Anteaters. Let's pick up where we left off, in the second paragraph of Random Internet Person's 12 paragraph spiel.

"‘But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow inkeeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, notwanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.’" - 2 Peter 3:8

Le sigh. The only part of this verse that could possibly be applied to the contradictory statements of his previous paragraph (here) would be the third sentence. Christians, if you're going to cherry pick verses from the Bible, go ahead and edit down to the sentence you need, rather than asking me to read three. I mean, really. Cherry pick WELL if you're going to cherry pick, at least.

Regardless, these three sentences are basically excuses for God's inaction. God hasn't done anything for 1000 years? Relax, he's just taking a day off!

God feels deep sorrow when He has to send His children to Hell...the same way earthly parents mourn over the physical deaths of their children. With love, there is always heartbreak. And since God's love is the GREATEST love of all...then I imagine His heart-break is the greatest of them all too.

"God feels deep sorrow when He has to send His children to Hell..." If it makes him so sad, why didn't he set up a better system? Who says he "has to" send anybody to hell? I mean, he's an all-powerful, all-knowing being, riiiiight? so surely he could think up, dream up, or know of a better system that wouldn't cause him to feel such deep sorrow (and ya know, wouldn't leave most of humanity to be "tortured viciously and inhumanely for all eternity.")

"... the same way earthly parents mourn over the physical deaths of their children." Okay, RIP, let me just give you a big fat What The Fuck Were You Thinking? (WTFWYT?) You do NOT go around telling people that you or your god knows what it feels like to lose a child. My grandmother lost her fourth daughter at 10 weeks old, to a congenital heart defect. My friend Tammy lost her eldest daughter to SIDS, and didn't sleep for the first two years of her younger two childrens' lives, as she had to keep nightly vigil she was so terrified of losing another. Another friend lost two, count 'em two, daughters to a rare and incurable form of brain cancer.

You do NOT get to talk about how a parent feels when they lose their child, as if it's something you're familiar with unless you are. I (thankfully) have no idea what it actually FEELS like. Now, let me explain why I found it so *offensive* for you to equate your god feeling bad about people he created (knowoing full well they'd never be saved and would be tortured vicisouly and inhuamenly for all eternity) suffering the torment he designed for them to suffer, and a parent losing their child despite all their efforts and money and hope and prayers. It's just not the same fucking thing AT ALL dude.

Tammy lost sleep for 5 years of her life, catching cat-naps during the day and abusing caffeine so she could ensure she didn't lose ONE more child. Yet your god refuses to show himself, reveal without doubt that he exists, so that millions of atheists and believers of other faiths could be saved.

His actions do not match those of a mother or father who has lost a child, and to pretend it does is a disgrace to every parent who lives in a torment you can't imagine.

"With love, there is always heartbreak." You know what there ISN'T with love? Torture. Torture is never part of love. Torture precludes love. A relationship that includes torture or even just the *threat* of torture is abusive.

Tomorrow (or more likely later today, since it's after 3 in the morning by the time I'm posting this)we'll be looking at the Power and Control Wheel, a tool used by therapists and social workers to help people in domestic violence/partner violence relationships recognize their situation.

We'll see how it applies to the god the Bible, or at least the god of the Bible as understood by RIP, Random Internet Person.Read more!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Hello, internet, I hope you haven't missed me too much. (If you start to, you can always say hi to me on Twitter @antitheistangie.) While remarking on the problem of pain and the distatestfulness of hell, a Christian Tweeter sent me a 12-paragraph missive on the mercificulness of a hell-creating god.

Random Internet Person, there's something you should know: I'm not going to READ 12 paragraphs of unsupported claims and religious beliefs unless my audience gets to read, and mock, it with me. Otherwise it's just boring. Let's begin in the beginning, because your first three sentences alone contradict each other a few times over.

God is just. What do think Hell is for? People who cause pain and suffering will be tortured viciously and inhumanely for all eternity. However, God does not WANT the rapists to burn in Hell because His love for all mankind is so deep. That's why He's patient and doesn't destroy them right away.

"God is just." This is a claim. I know the rest of your writing is intended to back up that claim, but it's a claim that your audience (well, me and my audience) aren't going to agree with from the get-go, just so you know.

"What do you think Hell is for?" I think hell is an idea (not a place) that exists to give the church more power, control, and money from fearful believers.

"People who cause pain and suffering will be tortured viciously and inhumanely for all eternity." Okay Random Internet Person (RIP from here on out), let's talk about what the word "just" actually means. A punishment or ruling which is "just" is one in which the punishment fits the crime. For reasons we'll get into more later, this is simply not an accurate description of the Bible God's basis for who goes to heaven and hell.

Also, let's look at this phrase you used "tortured viciously and inhumanely for all eternity." That's not justice, RIP. It's vicious inhumanity. You said so yourself. Things which are vicious, inhumane, and last for all eternity don't fall under the realm of things which are "just."

"However, God does not WANT the rapists to burn in hell..." You mean God's plans are constantly being thwarted? God's will is NOT done "on earth as it is in heaven"? And um, why did God invent Hell (and permanent punishment in it) if he didn't want anyone to go there, not even rapists? Also, God seems to be pretty tight with the rapists in the Old Testament, and never changes his mind and declares rape bad at any point in the Bible, one of the many reasons I do NOT consider the Bible to be a book of morals.

"... because His love for all mankind is so deep." So deep, it goes all the way to the fiery depths of hell? So deep his love includes people being "tortured viciously and inhumanely for all eternity"? I seriously hope you don't apply these cracked definitions of love and justice to your dating life or relationships, because if you do, you are going to be mistreated and abused. Love precludes violence, torture, and intentional harm - three things the God of the Bible seems to revel in.

"That's why He's patient and doesn't destroy them right away." I'm thinking "patience" is another word you may want to learn the meaning of before forming any interpersonal relationships. Not killing someone "right away" is a really fucking low bar for any "sinful" earthly human being, but you wanna pretend like it's evidence of how great your god's LOVE is? Shit, that's like me saying of my abusive alchoholic rapist ex-husband "He was patient with me and didn't actually kill me right away." It's STUPID and it's a set-up for abuse.

Further paragraphs on further days, so we don't all tear our hair out in frustration that Christians don't own dictionaries.Read more!

Friday, May 20, 2011

Really, my mother should have been grateful that I gravitated toward kids with broken homes. My best friends and boyfriends all had fucked up lives by the time we'd hit middle school. My mother was constantly trying to steer me away from people she saw as "bad influences" and who I saw as the only people I could be real with.

But really, she should have been glad. After all, if my friends had come from loving, supportive, nurturing, abuse-free homes, I might have realized what a terrible mother she was in time to press charges against her.

I tend to think of my mom as a good mom. I get this from comparing her to the moms of my friends in my teen years. Becky's mom bought us alcohol when Becky was only 15. Jamie's mom was usually out sleeping somewhere with boyfriend du jour. Deborah's mom refused to even try to help her daughter, spiraling out of control from anorexia and drug abuse.

Of course my mom looked good by comparison! All she did was medically neglect me, let me walk with a dislocated hip for three years, never talk to me about sex or contraception, verbally abuse me, manipulate me, and make me hate myself enough to try suicide as a lifestyle.

This past Mother's Day I made an important emotional decision: I am done pretending I forgive my mother. I think I've been pretending my whole life, making excuses for her, singing her successes (she got a PhD while a single mother of three kids,) sweeping my pain and misery under the rug.

But I don't think 12-year-olds with good moms dart in front of traffic, hoping to get hit, as I did.

I don't think 6-year-olds with good moms start stockpiling food in their planned run-away lean-to. (Nor do most happy 10-year-old boys start hitch-hiking on the interstate, as my abused and unhappy brother did.)

Did my mother ever beat me? No. But she brought her mother into our home and our lives, to be our caretaker, and she allowed my Giggy to beat us. She read Focus on the Family and justified ritual, frequent abuse. She never meted out the blows herself - she wanted to be the Good One that we liked, after all. And it was a good scheme for a long time. For years I was convinced my mom was the Good Parent. Now I realize: I didn't have one of those.

I hope she reads this blog post, and understands why I didn't call to wish her a Happy Mother's Day. I think those should be reserved for good mothers.